


By Any Other Name

by emjee (MerryHeart)



Series: Nature Points the Way, So Much Left to Say [4]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Smut, Throne Sex, possibly not the way you're imagining it but it still counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/emjee
Summary: “'When were you planning on telling me your real name?' Belle asked.Adam blinked. 'I have told you my real name.''Wrong,' said Belle, thumping the book against his chest. 'You’ve told me maybe one-sixth of your real name.'"Adam's been keeping some things to himself. Belle decides an interrogation is in order.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In the immortal words of tumblr user dereksprettyboy: "A concept: THRONE SEX!"

“ _You liar_.”

Adam turned toward the ballroom doors to find his lovely bride-to-be striding to where he stood with Lumière, going over last-minute wedding details.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” said Lumière with a quick bow.

“Traitor.”

“Guilty as charged. Shall we re-use the roses for your funeral?”

“You can’t let flowers that perfect go to waste.”

“I shall inform Cogsworth.”

Lumière departed just as Belle reached the far side of the room. Adam wracked his brain for what he possibly could have lied to her about.

 _No previous marriages, no illegitimate children,_ —God, he hoped— _and she certainly knows you were a cursed beast for a good portion of your life._

For heaven’s sake, the woman knew about his secret fondness for the Guinevere and Lancelot stories. (“You get your ridiculous doomed love, I get mine. At least Lancelot is more reasonable than Romeo.” “I’m sorry, did we read the same epic?”)

He was stumped, and she was waving a book in front of his nose as if that was going to explain things.

“When were you planning on telling me your real name?” Belle asked.

Adam blinked. “I _have_ told you my real name.”

It was the first conversation they’d had after he’d transformed, the first time she’d heard his voice without the underlying growl she’d grown accustomed to. She’d kissed him, soft and perfect, and he’d breathed her name when their lips parted. She’d rested her forehead against his and laughed softly. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve never asked you your name.”

It didn’t seem possible, but thinking back, he realized it was true. “It’s…It’s Adam. I call myself Adam.”

“Wrong,” said present-day Belle, thumping the book against his chest. “You’ve told me maybe one-sixth of your real name.”

Adam groaned and rolled his eyes in a manner he usually reserved for letters from Versailles and overrated Renaissance plays. “Let me guess. The book that you’ve likely bruised my sternum with is the Peerage.”

“ _La pairie et la noblesse de la France_ ,” Belle confirmed.

“Ghastly book.”

“Really? I found it quite informative, Jean-Mathieu-Yvain-François-Adam de Thibault.”

Adam turned on his heel and strode up the dais steps behind him before flinging himself into one of the throne-sized chairs that sat there. A second one had been placed beside it, and it was there that they would sit tomorrow, after the ceremony, when Lumière announced them as _le prince et la princesse._ “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Don’t act as if you’re the one who’s been wronged,” said Belle, following him. “Do you know how satisfying that name would be to shout down the corridors when you’re trying to get away from me?”

Adam reached forward and pulled Belle down onto his lap. “When do I ever try to get away from you?” he asked, burying his nose in her hair.

Belle wound her arms around his neck. “When I’m trying to make you do things you don’t want to do. Like responding to your cousins’ letters or going over the ledgers with Cogsworth.”

“Or re-organizing the library.”

“I think I’ve given up on that one.”

“Somehow I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t believe _you_ ,” said Belle, raking her fingers through Adam’s hair, “expecting that Père Robert would just stand up and say ‘Do you, Belle, take Jean-Mathieu-Yvain-François-Adam’ and I, without any preparation, would be able to keep a straight face.”

“I had faith in you!”

“Your faith was, in this instance, misplaced. Luckily I did some reading and saved us all from embarrassment.”

He brushed his lips against hers as he spoke. “I think that’s going to be the motto of our lives.”

Her smiled curved against his mouth. “I think it already is.” She pressed her lips to his, soft and teasing, giving just enough to leave him aching, withholding just enough to drive him mad.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” he said when they broke apart.

“I’m quite excited myself, now that I know who you really are.”

“Ugh.” Adam thumped his head against the back of the chair and reached for the book wedged between them. “What on earth possessed you to curl up with _this_ the day before your wedding?” He tossed it onto the other chair.

“A desire to know more about what I’m getting myself into.”

Adam knew the idea of becoming a princess had not been entirely appealing to Belle, but when he’d revealed the practical responsibilities it entailed and the extent to which he and he father had neglected them, she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into preparing for the role. The woman loved a challenge.

She was marrying him, after all.

“The Peerage isn’t going to tell you how to manage land and be good to tenants. Believe me, my father made me spend so much time with it growing up, I would know. It’s all names and marriages and how old your title is. It would be much faster for the men at court to just drop their breeches, make comparisons, and get it over with.”

“I meant the _family_ I’m getting myself into.”

“Ha. I really don’t think you want to know.”

“Yes, remaining ignorant of potential problems is always the sure way to success.” She cocked her head and quirked an eyebrow. “When exactly, for instance, were you going to tell me you’re _le_ _comte_ de Champagne in addition to being _le prince_ d’Ardennes?”

He shrugged. “It’s not an important title.”

“Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter Marie was _comtesse_ de Champagne and it’s been a respected title ever since.”

“God, I can’t get anything past you.” Adam sighed and shifted Belle so that her head rested against his shoulder. This would be easier to talk about without looking at her. “The quick answer is that the title seems superfluous, since Champagne is completely contained by Ardennes. As _prince_ d’Ardennes, technically I own that land already. The longer answer is that the county of Champagne is a matrilineal title. I inherited it from my mother. Remembering Champagne reminds me of all the ways I’ve failed her.”

They were quiet together for long moments. Belle pressed her hand against his heart, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. _He was alive_. She felt like she constantly needed to remind herself—everything had gone from sheer horror to utter joy so quickly, and she still had the most grotesque nightmares.

But he was here, breathing beneath her, and he needed her.

“Will you tell me about her?” Belle asked.

Adam let out a long exhale. “She would have adored you. She was brilliant. And kind. And I think my father didn’t like her for those very reasons. He married her because her title was important and he wanted to tie himself to her family. But he was never a faithful man. I was a—a difficult birth, as I understand it, and I think once it became clear that I was healthy and, barring disaster, likely to see adulthood, she refused his bed. He had his heir, her job was done. She didn’t like him, but she adored me. Kept me with her all the time, and shielded me from him. I was terrified of him when I was young, and I loved her so much. And then she died.”

He went quiet, and Belle raised her head from his shoulder to look at him. She cupped his jaw in her hand and ran a thumb across the curve of his cheek. He took a deep breath and continued, “I didn’t get to say goodbye. Not properly. They never allowed me in her sickroom; they had strict orders from my father. Couldn’t risk me falling ill and dying and the estates passing to some cousin. The last time I saw her alive was two weeks before she was gone. I saw her briefly—just after. My father let me stand by the bedside a minute, perhaps, then whisked me away. Life after that was…difficult. I finally started to just do as he said, to make things easier. And after a while…I forgot.”

Belle leaned in to kiss his forehead. “You haven’t failed her.”

Adam turned his head away. “She would have hated—”

“What you’ve become?” said Belle, nudging her fingers against his jaw to urge his gaze back to her. “She would have hated that you’ve become generous, and well-read, and a compassionate ruler, and a loving husband?”

“Bit soon to say I’ve become all that, don’t you think?”

“I do not.”

He forced himself to meet her eyes. She stared at him, resolute as the first time he’d seen her. _Forever can spare a minute_. No doubt she’d been terrified, but she’d had her mind set, and she would not be moved. Not then, not now.

He’d found the one woman as stubborn as he was.

No wonder he was dying to marry her.

“She named me Jean-Mathieu. That’s what I grew up being called. After she died I didn’t want anyone else to call me that. I doubt my father would have consented had I not absolutely refused to respond to it. I think Jean-Mathieu always sounded a bit pious to him anyway. François is a good courtly name, but since every other person in the aristocracy is named François we always hyphenated it. Go up to Versailles, mention François-Adam de Thibault in a crowd, and you’ll hear a hundred raucous, humiliating stories about the man I used to be.”

“Why keep Adam, then?”

“ _And unto Adam he said, ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden._ ”

Belle took a deep breath. “Do you know what ‘Adam’ means?”

“My education covered many things, but Hebrew was not one of them.”

“It means ‘man’. You are a _man_ , Adam. Mortal, and guilty, and beautiful. Redeemable. You know it here,” she pressed her hand more firmly against his heart, “and here,” she brushed her other hand across his forehead, “and you said it when you stood on the ramparts. You are not a beast. You are a _man_. You are the man I love.”

He took her face in his hands and stared at her for long moments. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, unsure of what else to say, and suddenly he pulled her in for a kiss, then another, and another, coming faster and harder and needier. She sank her fingers into his hair and felt his grip at her waist tighten.

“We need—to talk—about one more thing,” she managed between kisses.

He pulled back, breathless. “Yes?”

“Yvain?”

Adam tipped his head back and gave a hearty laugh. “My mother insisted, so I’m told. I come by my love of Arthurian legend honestly.”

“I’ve not heard of Yvain.”

“It’s a fantastic story. A knight goes questing, wins his love, marries her, goes questing again, loses her through his own stupidity, goes completely insane, regains his senses, and fights his way back to her. Also, a lion shows up halfway through. Absolutely barking mad.”

“Almost like a prince who turns into a beast and has to find his love before a flower dies.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That makes perfect sense.” The light had returned to his face. Belle smiled. “You truly need to read _Yvain_ , though, it’s a horrendous gap in your education.”

“You can read it to me,” Belle suggested. “I’ve always liked bedtime stories.”

“I expect to be using bedtime a bit differently, soon.” Belle shifted in his lap. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” She hiked her skirt to her knees and moved to straddle him, lacing her hands around the back of his neck.

“Belle…” There was a warning tone in his voice.

“No?”

“Well… _yes_ …but…I’m not sure I can take—”

“Take what?” Belle asked, grinding her hips against his, feeling the hard swell in his breeches.

“That. Exactly what you just did.”

“This, you mean?” Belle repeated the movement. “That’s what you’re not sure you can take?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” She moved her hands to his shoulders. “The thing is—I’m not sure you’ve properly suffered for keeping your exquisite name from me.”

“It’s not exquisite,” Adam protested, a bit breathless. “It’s superfluous. Your parents had the right idea. ‘This child is beautiful,’ they said, ‘let’s call her Belle’.”

“All I’m saying,” Belle whispered, her breath hot and sweet against Adam’s ear, “is that there must be other satisfying ways to scream your name that don’t involve me being irritated with you.” She swept the tip of her tongue along the curve of Adam’s ear, then pressed a kiss to the soft patch of skin behind it. He moaned as she kissed him there again, with teeth.

“Belle…just one more day.”

“Do we have to wait?” she groaned.

“We’ve waited this long.”

“Not for some things.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” she demanded, pressing down on him and running her hands over his chest. “You’ve touched me, you’ve taken me all the way to—” she waved a hand to indicate what she didn’t have words for. “You never let me do the same for you.”

“Belle.”

She kissed him, hard and persistent, and when her tongue slid against his he felt lust sing through his veins like strong wine. “I want to give you this,” she said, breathless. “Tell me what you like. Please.” When he hesitated, she trailed her fingers, feather-light, along his jaw, down his neck, dipping into the hollow of his throat. “Adam. I’ll be your wife tomorrow.”

That did it. “Get on your knees,” he said, trying not to hate himself for how arousing it was to say. “On the floor.” He unbuttoned the fall of his breeches as she situated herself, then shifted forward to the edge of his seat.

Before he could say anything, she reached to move the fabric aside, taking his cock in her hand, hard and heavy and aching for her. He moaned as she stroked his shaft, exploring what he liked, how he felt in her hand.

“Lick your palm,” he breathed. “It’ll make things easier.”

She did as she was told, and he bit back a groan as she looked him in the eyes and rasped her tongue across her hand. He tried not to think about what that tongue would feel like on him, and failed spectacularly.

She licked her fingers as well, one by one, and returned her hand to him, rubbing her fingertips across his swollen, smooth head. His hips jerked toward her, and one corner of her mouth curved up in a smile.

_Shameless minx._

“Firmer,” he told her, and her movements became more regular, more sure.

He saw her tongue peek out from between her lips. “This isn’t the only way I could do this, is it?”

“No,” he said, his breath ragged, “but you don’t have to.”

She glared up at him, her gaze hard and full of sparks. “Of course I don’t have to. I _want_ to. Just tell me how.”

He looked at her, kneeling between his legs, his cock in her hand, her lips swollen from his kisses, and knew he was lost.

“You can…take me in your mouth. If that...sounds like something you'd like."

"God, yes."

"Use your tongue as much as you like. Avoid teeth.”

He’d barely finished speaking before her lips were on him, and he nearly cried out. She didn’t take him very deep, but her tongue swirled across the head of his cock and gripped the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles went white.

This wasn’t going to take very long.

He threaded his fingers through her hair, gently guiding the motion of her head as she tasted him, as she learned him in such a completely new way.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d always been an enthusiastic student.

She made a noise low in her throat, and the vibrations might as well have been shockwaves.

“Belle,” he gasped, “you might want to—”

“Mm-mm,” she protested, mouth still on him, taking him, loving him. Everything about her—the sight of her before him, the small sounds she made, the _smell_ of her, like ink and charcoal dust and lily-of-the-valley—sent him right to the edge.

“Belle, I mean it, you don’t want—”

She lifted her head just long enough to say, “I know what happens. I want to taste you.”

He was barely coherent after that, and after a minute more of her beautiful brilliant tongue working against him, his back arched and he reached out to hold her still, groaning her name as he came in her mouth.

She took it surprisingly well, he thought. The first time he’d done it at fourteen he’d spluttered and choked and been supremely thankful he was at Versailles and never needed to see that rosy-cheeked kitchen boy again.

Belle sat back on her heels as she swallowed, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. He’d gone completely still, collapsing against the throne he would be sitting in tomorrow when he presented her to the world as his wife.

“What that…” Her voice was tentative. “Was that alright?”

“Alright?” The word came out on a rushed exhale. “I’ll be lucky if I’m coherent enough to take my vows tomorrow. Belle, darling, you are…I don’t have words for what you are. You probably do. You have words for everything.”

He carefully began to set his clothing to rights as Belle said, “If you are not coherent tomorrow, I will find Mrs. Potts and she will pour tea down your throat until she _makes_ you coherent.”

“Don’t worry, my love,” Adam sighed, coming to his feet and reaching for her hands to pull her up. “Hell and high water cannot prevent me from standing up with you tomorrow. I cannot wait to make you mine.”

Belle slid an arm around his shoulders and stood up on tiptoe. “I’m already yours.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth.

“As I am yours.” He kissed her forehead and continued, “Now that you’ve brought up tea, I find myself craving a cup.”

Belle laughed and they made their way to the ballroom doors. “Have these been open the whole time?” she asked, reaching for one doorknob with belated anxiety. It did not turn. She turned the key that was resting in the keyhole and heard the lock click open.

“Lumière,” explained Adam. “Bastard must have locked the door and snuck out the servants’ entrance.”

“I’ll have to send him a bottle of brandy by way of thanks.”

“Save the brandy for my tea, I think I’ll need a splash of it.”

As they made their way to the kitchens, Belle laced her fingers through Adam’s. “Since tomorrow I’ll be _la comtesse_ de Champagne, I hope you know I’m now expecting us to take our honeymoon in wine country.”

“I rather thought we’d take our honeymoon by locking ourselves in the West Wing for a week and telling Mrs. Potts to just leave the food outside the door.”

“After that, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born of my belief that "Adam" is not a sufficiently pretentious name for a member of eighteenth century French nobility.  
> Ardennes is a real region in northeast France--Shakespeare sets his play As You Like It in its extensive forests--but I've taken some liberties by making it the principality Adam rules. In French nobility, "prince" is both a rank--for immediate members of the royal family--and a feudal title akin to "lord". I've made it a title for Adam, and also given him the very real inheritance of the county of Champagne, which was very well-respected and could indeed be inherited through the female line. I based the book Belle reads on Debrett's British peerage, which is A) British and B) the first edition of which didn't appear until 1769. But I couldn't easily find a French equivalent, and also I do what I want.  
> All historical inaccuracies are my own and probably intentional, because yay artistic license.  
> Also, Yvain is a real Arthurian romance by Chretien de Troyes and it is as much of a crazysauce delight as Adam makes it out to be. I recommend the translation by Burton Raffel.


End file.
